Serial-position effect

Last updated

Serial-position effect is the tendency of a person to recall the first and last items in a series best, and the middle items worst. [1] The term was coined by Hermann Ebbinghaus through studies he performed on himself, and refers to the finding that recall accuracy varies as a function of an item's position within a study list. [2] When asked to recall a list of items in any order (free recall), people tend to begin recall with the end of the list, recalling those items best (the recency effect). Among earlier list items, the first few items are recalled more frequently than the middle items (the primacy effect). [3] [4]

Contents

One suggested reason for the primacy effect is that the initial items presented are most effectively stored in long-term memory because of the greater amount of processing devoted to them. (The first list item can be rehearsed by itself; the second must be rehearsed along with the first, the third along with the first and second, and so on.) The primacy effect is reduced when items are presented quickly and is enhanced when presented slowly (factors that reduce and enhance processing of each item and thus permanent storage). Longer presentation lists have been found to reduce the primacy effect. [4]

One theorised reason for the recency effect is that these items are still present in working memory when recall is solicited. Items that benefit from neither (the middle items) are recalled most poorly. An additional explanation for the recency effect is related to temporal context: if tested immediately after rehearsal, the current temporal context can serve as a retrieval cue, which would predict more recent items to have a higher likelihood of recall than items that were studied in a different temporal context (earlier in the list). [5] The recency effect is reduced when an interfering task is given. Intervening tasks involve working memory, as the distractor activity, if exceeding 15 to 30 seconds in duration, can cancel out the recency effect. [6] Additionally, if recall comes immediately after the test, the recency effect is consistent regardless of the length of the studied list, [4] or presentation rate. [7]

Amnesiacs with poor ability to form permanent long-term memories do not show a primacy effect, but do show a recency effect if recall comes immediately after study. [8] People with Alzheimer's disease exhibit a reduced primacy effect but do not produce a recency effect in recall. [9]

Primacy effect

In psychology and sociology, the primacy effect (also known as the primacy bias) is a cognitive bias that results in a subject recalling primary information presented better than information presented later on. For example, a subject who reads a sufficiently long list of words is more likely to remember words toward the beginning than words in the middle.

Many researchers have tried to explain this phenomenon through free recall [null tests]. Coluccia, Gamboz, and Brandimonte (2011) explain free recall as participants trying to remember information without any prompting. In some experiments in the late 20th century, it was noted that participants who knew that they were going to be tested on a list presented to them would rehearse items: as items were presented, the participants would repeat those items to themselves and as new items were presented, the participants would continue to rehearse previous items along with the newer items. It was demonstrated that the primacy effect had a greater influence on recall when there was more time between presentation of items so that participants would have a greater chance to rehearse previous (prime) items. [10] [11] [12]

Overt rehearsal was a technique that was meant to test participants' rehearsal patterns. In an experiment using this technique, participants were asked to recite out loud the items that come to mind. In this way, the experimenter was able to see that participants would repeat earlier items more than items in the middle of the list, thus rehearsing them more frequently and having a better recall of the prime items than the middle items later on. [13]

In another experiment, by Brodie and Murdock, the recency effect was found to be partially responsible for the primacy effect. [14] In their experiment, they also used the overt-rehearsal technique and found that in addition to rehearsing earlier items more than later items, participants were rehearsing earlier items later on in the list. In this way, earlier items were closer to the test period by way of rehearsal and could be partially explained by the recency effect.

In 2013, a study showed that primacy effect is also prominent in decision making based on experience in a repeated-choice paradigm, a learning process also known as operant conditioning. The authors showed that importance attached to the value of the first reward on subsequent behaviour, a phenomenon they denoted as outcome primacy. [15]

In another study, participants received one of two sentences. For example, one may be given "Steve is smart, diligent, critical, impulsive, and jealous." and the other "Steve is jealous, impulsive, critical, diligent, and smart." These two sentences contain the same information. The first one suggests positive trait at the beginning while the second one has negative traits. Researchers found that the subjects evaluated Steve more positively when given the first sentence, compared with the second one. [16]

Recency effect

Two traditional classes of theories explain the recency effect.

Dual-store models

These models postulate that study items listed last are retrieved from a highly accessible short-term buffer, i.e. the short-term store (STS) in human memory. This allows items that are recently studied to have an advantage over those that were studied earlier, as earlier study items have to be retrieved with greater effort from one’s long-term memory store (LTS).

An important prediction of such models is that the presentation of a distraction, for example solving arithmetic problems for 10–30 seconds, during the retention period (the time between list presentation and test) attenuates the recency effect. Since the STS has limited capacity, the distraction displaces later study list items from the STS so that at test, these items can only be retrieved from the LTS, and have lost their earlier advantage of being more easily retrieved from the short-term buffer. As such, dual-store models successfully account for both the recency effect in immediate recall tasks, and the attenuation of such an effect in the delayed free recall task.

A major problem with this model, however, is that it cannot predict the long-term recency effect observed in delayed recall, when a distraction intervenes between each study item during the interstimulus interval (continuous distractor task). [17] Since the distraction is still present after the last study item, it should displace the study item from STS such that the recency effect is attenuated. The existence of this long-term recency effect thus raises the possibility that immediate and long-term recency effects share a common mechanism. [18]

Single-store models

According to single-store theories, a single mechanism is responsible for serial-position effects. A first type of model is based on relative temporal distinctiveness, in which the time lag between the study of each list item and the test determines the relative competitiveness of an item’s memory trace at retrieval. [17] [19] In this model, end-of-list items are thought to be more distinct, and hence more easily retrieved.

Another type of model is based on contextual variability, which postulates that retrieval of items from memory is cued not only based on one’s mental representation of the study item itself, but also of the study context. [20] [21] Since context varies and increasingly changes with time, on an immediate free-recall test, when memory items compete for retrieval, more recently studied items will have more similar encoding contexts to the test context, and are more likely to be recalled.

Outside immediate free recall, these models can also predict the presence or absence of the recency effect in delayed free recall and continual-distractor free-recall conditions. Under delayed recall conditions, the test context would have drifted away with increasing retention interval, leading to attenuated recency effect. Under continual distractor recall conditions, while increased interpresentation intervals reduce the similarities between study context and test context, the relative similarities among items remains unchanged. As long as the recall process is competitive, recent items will win out, so a recency effect is observed.

Ratio rule

Overall, an important empirical observation regarding the recency effect is that it is not the absolute duration of retention intervals (RI, the time between end of study and test period) or of inter-presentation intervals (IPI, the time between different study items) that matters. Rather, the amount of recency is determined by the ratio of RI to IPI (the ratio rule). As a result, as long as this ratio is fixed, recency will be observed regardless of the absolute values of intervals, so that recency can be observed at all time scales, a phenomenon known as time-scale invariance. This contradicts dual-store models, which assume that recency depends on the size of STS, and the rule governing the displacement of items in the STS.[ citation needed ]

Potential explanations either then explain the recency effect as occurring through a single, same mechanism, or re-explain it through a different type of model that postulates two different mechanisms for immediate and long-term recency effects. One such explanation is provided by Davelaar et al. (2005), [22] who argue that there are dissociations between immediate and long-term recency phenomena that cannot be explained by a single-component memory model, and who argues for the existence of a STS that explains immediate recency, and a second mechanism based on contextual drift that explains long-term recency. The recency effect as well as the ratio changes in Alzheimer's disease and therefore can be used as an indicator of this disease condition from the earliest stages of neurodegeneration [23]

In 1977, William Crano decided to outline a study to further the previous conclusions on the nature of order effects, in particular those of primacy vs. recency, which were said to be unambiguous and opposed in their predictions. The specifics tested by Crano were:

Change of meaning hypothesis
The items on the beginning of a list establish a theme that the participants expect the rest of the list to fall into. The participant modified the meaning of some of the words on the list to fit with the expectation he or she established. Watkins and Peynicioglu (1984) explain this as participants changing the meaning of words, deviating from the established theme, to reduce the amount of deviation in the information presented.
Inconsistency discounting
Participants would disregard information that was not consistent with previous items presented to them. In other words, discounting involves thinking of inconsistent information as having less value than information that is consistent with other information presented (Devine & Ostrom, 1985).
Attention decrement hypothesis
Information presented first has a greater influence on participants than information that is presented later, causing a primacy effect to occur, even if the information is consistent. Steiner and Rain (1989) explain people pay more attention to information presented at the beginning, but progressively pay less attention to the information presented to them. The primacy effect occurs because participants pay attention to the beginning information and ignore the information presented later. On the other hand, if participants are in a situation where they have to continuously pay attention to information, a recency effect may occur.

The continuity effect or lag-recency effect predicts that having made a successful recall, the next recalled item is less likely to come from a remote serial position, rather than a nearby serial position (Kahana, Howard, Zaromb & Wingfiend, 2002). The difference between the two items' serial position is referred to as serial-position lag. Another factor, called the conditional-response probability, is the likelihood of recalling a certain serial-position lag. A graph of serial-position lag versus conditional response probability reveals that the next item recalled minimizes absolute lag, with a higher likelihood for the adjacent than the previous one.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Coleman, Andrew (2006). Dictionary of Psychology (Second ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 688.
  2. ↑ Ebbinghaus, Hermann (1913). On memory: A contribution to experimental psychology. New York: Teachers College.
  3. ↑ Deese and Kaufman (1957) Serial effects in recall of unorganized and sequentially organized verbal material, J Exp Psychol. 1957 Sep;54(3):180-7
  4. 1 2 3 Murdock, Bennet (1962). "Serial Position Effect of Free Recall" (PDF). Journal of Experimental Psychology. 64 (5): 482–488. doi:10.1037/h0045106. S2CID   6752448. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-12-21.
  5. ↑ Howard, Marc W.; Michael J. Kahana (2002). "A Distributed Representation of Temporal Context". Journal of Mathematical Psychology. 46 (3): 269–299. doi:10.1006/jmps.2001.1388.
  6. ↑ Bjork, Robert A.; William B. Whitten (1974). "Recency-Sensitive Retrieval Processes in Long-Term Free Recall" (PDF). Cognitive Psychology. 6 (2): 173–189. doi:10.1016/0010-0285(74)90009-7. hdl: 2027.42/22374 .
  7. ↑ Murdock, Bennet; Janet Metcalf (1978). "Controlled Rehearsal in Single-Trial Free Recall". Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior. 17 (3): 309–324. doi:10.1016/s0022-5371(78)90201-3.
  8. ↑ Carlesimo, Giovanni; G.A. Marfia; A. Loasses; C. Caltagirone (1996). "Recency effect in anterograde amnesia: Evidence for distinct memory stores underlying enhanced retrieval of terminal items in immediate and delayed recall paradigms". Neuropsychologia. 34 (3): 177–184. doi:10.1016/0028-3932(95)00100-x. PMID   8868275. S2CID   21283911.
  9. ↑ Bayley, Peter J.; David P. Salmon; Mark W. Bondi; Barbara K. Bui; John Olichney; Dean C. Delis; Ronald G. Thomas; Leon J. Thai (March 2000). "Comparison of the serial-position effect in very mild Alzheimer's disease, mild Alzheimer's disease, and amnesia associated with electroconvulsive therapy". Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society. 6 (3): 290–298. doi:10.1017/S1355617700633040. PMID   10824501. S2CID   20066815.
  10. ↑ Glenberg, A.M; M.M. Bradley; J.A. Stevenson; T.A. Kraus; M.J. Tkachuk; A.L. Gretz (1980). "A two-process account of long-term serial position effects". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory. 6 (4): 355–369. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.6.4.355.
  11. ↑ Marshall, P.H.; P.R. Werder (1972). "The effects of the elimination of rehearsal on primacy and recency". Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior. 11 (5): 649–653. doi:10.1016/s0022-5371(72)80049-5.
  12. ↑ Rundus, D (1980). "Maintenance rehearsal and long-term recency". Memory and Cognition. 8 (3): 226–230. doi: 10.3758/BF03197610 . PMID   7392949.
  13. ↑ Rundus, D (1971). "An analysis of rehearsal processes in free recall". Journal of Experimental Psychology. 89: 63–77. doi:10.1037/h0031185.
  14. ↑ Brodie, D.A.; B.B. Murdock (1977). "Effects of presentation time on nominal and functional serial-position curves in free recall". Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior. 16 (2): 185–200. doi:10.1016/s0022-5371(77)80046-7.
  15. ↑ Shteingart, Hanan; Tal Neiman; Yonatan Loewenstein (2013). "The Role of First Impression in Operant Learning" (PDF). Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 142 (2): 476–488. doi:10.1037/a0029550. PMID   22924882. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-10-06. Retrieved 2013-09-14.
  16. ↑ Asch, S (1946). "Forming impressions of personality". Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 41 (3): 258–290. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.463.2813 . doi:10.1037/h0055756. PMID   20995551.
  17. 1 2 Bjork & Whitten (1974). Recency sensitive retrieval processes in long-term free recall, Cognitive Psychology, 6, 173–189.
  18. ↑ Greene, R. L. (1986). "Sources of recency effects in free recall". Psychological Bulletin. 99 (12): 221–228. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.99.2.221.
  19. ↑ Neath, I.; Knoedler, A. J. (1994). "Distinctiveness and serial position effects in recognition and sentence processing". Journal of Memory and Language. 33 (6): 776–795. doi:10.1006/jmla.1994.1037.
  20. ↑ Howard, M. W.; Kahana, M. (1999). "Contextual variability and serial position effects in free recall". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 24 (4): 923–941. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.360.18 . doi:10.1037/0278-7393.25.4.923. PMID   10439501.
  21. ↑ Howard, M. W.; Kahana, M. J. (2002). "A distributed representation of temporal context". Journal of Mathematical Psychology. 46 (3): 269–299. doi:10.1006/jmps.2001.1388.
  22. ↑ Davelaar, E. K.; Goshen-Gottstein, Y.; Ashkenazi, A.; Haarmann, H. J.; Usher, M. (2005). "The demise of short-term memory revisited: Empirical and computational investigations of recency effects". Psychological Review. 112 (1): 3–42. doi:10.1037/0033-295x.112.1.3. PMID   15631586. S2CID   16327806.
  23. ↑ Kovács KA (December 2021). "Relevance of a Novel Circuit-Level Model of Episodic Memories to Alzheimer's Disease". International Journal of Molecular Sciences. 23 (1): 462. doi: 10.3390/ijms23010462 . PMC   8745479 . PMID   35008886.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Forgetting</span> Loss or modification of information encoded in an individuals memory

Forgetting or disremembering is the apparent loss or modification of information already encoded and stored in an individual's short or long-term memory. It is a spontaneous or gradual process in which old memories are unable to be recalled from memory storage. Problems with remembering, learning and retaining new information are a few of the most common complaints of older adults. Studies show that retention improves with increased rehearsal. This improvement occurs because rehearsal helps to transfer information into long-term memory.

Long-term memory (LTM) is the stage of the Atkinson–Shiffrin memory model in which informative knowledge is held indefinitely. It is defined in contrast to sensory memory, the initial stage, and short-term or working memory, the second stage, which persists for about 18 to 30 seconds. LTM is grouped into two categories known as explicit memory and implicit memory. Explicit memory is broken down into episodic and semantic memory, while implicit memory includes procedural memory and emotional conditioning.

Short-term memory is the capacity for holding a small amount of information in an active, readily available state for a short interval. For example, short-term memory holds a phone number that has just been recited. The duration of short-term memory is estimated to be on the order of seconds. The commonly cited capacity of 7 items, found in Miller's Law, has been superseded by 4±1 items. In contrast, long-term memory holds information indefinitely.

Recall in memory refers to the mental process of retrieval of information from the past. Along with encoding and storage, it is one of the three core processes of memory. There are three main types of recall: free recall, cued recall and serial recall. Psychologists test these forms of recall as a way to study the memory processes of humans and animals. Two main theories of the process of recall are the two-stage theory and the theory of encoding specificity.

The interference theory is a theory regarding human memory. Interference occurs in learning. The notion is that memories encoded in long-term memory (LTM) are forgotten and cannot be retrieved into short-term memory (STM) because either memory could interfere with the other. There is an immense number of encoded memories within the storage of LTM. The challenge for memory retrieval is recalling the specific memory and working in the temporary workspace provided in STM. Retaining information regarding the relevant time of encoding memories into LTM influences interference strength. There are two types of interference effects: proactive and retroactive interference.

The Decay theory is a theory that proposes that memory fades due to the mere passage of time. Information is therefore less available for later retrieval as time passes and memory, as well as memory strength, wears away. When an individual learns something new, a neurochemical "memory trace" is created. However, over time this trace slowly disintegrates. Actively rehearsing information is believed to be a major factor counteracting this temporal decline. It is widely believed that neurons die off gradually as we age, yet some older memories can be stronger than most recent memories. Thus, decay theory mostly affects the short-term memory system, meaning that older memories are often more resistant to shocks or physical attacks on the brain. It is also thought that the passage of time alone cannot cause forgetting, and that decay theory must also take into account some processes that occur as more time passes.

The Atkinson–Shiffrin model is a model of memory proposed in 1968 by Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin. The model asserts that human memory has three separate components:

  1. a sensory register, where sensory information enters memory,
  2. a short-term store, also called working memory or short-term memory, which receives and holds input from both the sensory register and the long-term store, and
  3. a long-term store, where information which has been rehearsed in the short-term store is held indefinitely.

The spacing effect demonstrates that learning is more effective when study sessions are spaced out. This effect shows that more information is encoded into long-term memory by spaced study sessions, also known as spaced repetition or spaced presentation, than by massed presentation ("cramming").

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Testing effect</span> Memory effect in educational psychology

The testing effect suggests long-term memory is increased when part of the learning period is devoted to retrieving information from memory. It is different from the more general practice effect, defined in the APA Dictionary of Psychology as "any change or improvement that results from practice or repetition of task items or activities."

Memory has the ability to encode, store and recall information. Memories give an organism the capability to learn and adapt from previous experiences as well as build relationships. Encoding allows a perceived item of use or interest to be converted into a construct that can be stored within the brain and recalled later from long-term memory. Working memory stores information for immediate use or manipulation, which is aided through hooking onto previously archived items already present in the long-term memory of an individual.

Free recall is a common task in the psychological study of memory. In this task, participants study a list of items on each trial, and then are prompted to recall the items in any order. Items are usually presented one at a time for a short duration, and can be any of a number of nameable materials, although traditionally, words from a larger set are chosen. The recall period typically lasts a few minutes, and can involve spoken or written recall. The standard test involves the recall period starting immediately after the final list item; this can be referred to as immediate free recall (IFR) to distinguish it from delayed free recall (DFR). In delayed free recall, there is a short distraction period between the final list item and the start of the recall period. Both IFR and DFR have been used to test certain effects that appear during recall tests, such as the primacy effect and recency effect.

In mental memory, storage is one of three fundamental stages along with encoding and retrieval. Memory is the process of storing and recalling information that was previously acquired. Storing refers to the process of placing newly acquired information into memory, which is modified in the brain for easier storage. Encoding this information makes the process of retrieval easier for the brain where it can be recalled and brought into conscious thinking. Modern memory psychology differentiates between the two distinct types of memory storage: short-term memory and long-term memory. Several models of memory have been proposed over the past century, some of them suggesting different relationships between short- and long-term memory to account for different ways of storing memory.

The modality effect is a term used in experimental psychology, most often in the fields dealing with memory and learning, to refer to how learner performance depends on the presentation mode of studied items.

In psychology, context-dependent memory is the improved recall of specific episodes or information when the context present at encoding and retrieval are the same. In a simpler manner, "when events are represented in memory, contextual information is stored along with memory targets; the context can therefore cue memories containing that contextual information". One particularly common example of context-dependence at work occurs when an individual has lost an item in an unknown location. Typically, people try to systematically "retrace their steps" to determine all of the possible places where the item might be located. Based on the role that context plays in determining recall, it is not at all surprising that individuals often quite easily discover the lost item upon returning to the correct context. This concept is heavily related to the encoding specificity principle.

In cognitive psychology, a recall test is a test of memory of mind in which participants are presented with stimuli and then, after a delay, are asked to remember as many of the stimuli as possible. Memory performance can be indicated by measuring the percentage of stimuli the participant was able to recall. An example of this would be studying a list of 10 words and later recalling 5 of them. This is a 50 percent recall. Participants' responses also may be analyzed to determine if there is a pattern in the way items are being recalled from memory. For example, if participants are given a list consisting of types of vegetables and types of fruit, their recall can be assessed to determine whether they grouped vegetables together and fruits together. Recall is also involved when a person is asked to recollect life events, such as graduating high school, or to recall facts they have learned, such as the capital of Florida.

The encoding specificity principle is the general principle that matching the encoding contexts of information at recall assists in the retrieval of episodic memories. It provides a framework for understanding how the conditions present while encoding information relate to memory and recall of that information.

Serial memory processing is the act of attending to and processing one item at a time. This is usually contrasted against parallel memory processing, which is the act of attending to and processing all items simultaneously.

In cognitive science, association by contiguity is the principle that ideas, memories, and experiences are linked when one is frequently experienced with the other. For example, if one constantly sees a knife and a fork together they become linked (associated). The more these two items (stimuli) are perceived together the stronger the link between them. When one of the memories becomes activated later on, the linked memory becomes temporarily more activated and thus easier to be called into working memory. This process is called priming, and the initial memory that primed the other is called the retrieval cue.

The forward testing effect, also known as test potentiated new learning, is a psychological learning theory which suggests that testing old information can improve learning of new information. Unlike traditional learning theories in educational psychology which have established the positive effect testing has when later attempting to retrieve the same information, the forward testing effect instead suggests that the testing experience itself possesses unique benefits which enhance the learning of new information. This memory effect is also distinct from the 'practice effect' which typically refers to an observed improvement which results from repetition and restudy, as the testing itself is considered as the catalyst for improved recall. Instead, this theory suggests that testing serves not only as a tool for assessment but as a learning tool which can aid in memory recall. The forward testing effect indicates that educators should encourage students to study using testing techniques rather than restudying information repeatedly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Associative interference</span>

Associative interference is a cognitive theory established on the concept of associative learning, which suggests that the brain links related elements. When one element is stimulated, its associates can also be activated. The most known study demonstrating the credibility of this concept was Pavlov's experiment in 1927 which was later developed into the learning procedure known as classical conditioning.

References

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.